"Big Boy Leaves Home," Part 4 Summary

Big Boy runs for his kiln, choosing his route carefully, worried that bloodhounds might track him to his hiding place. Along the way, he thinks of his father's gun and fantasizes about killing the entire lynch mob. When he gets to the kiln, a large, venomous snake slithers out. Big Boy fights and kills the snake. He enters the hole worried about other snakes lurking inside. Waiting in the hole, he reminisces about playing in the kilns, how he, Lester, Buck and Bobo would light fires, causing jugs to blow their tops, and how each pretended to be driving a train. He has more fantasies about killing the mob, imagining potential newspaper headlines resulting from his killing them.

Then Big Boy hears the lynch mob searching nearby, and he hunkers down, worried for Bobo. A dog finds...